Michigan favorite Short's beer coming to Chicago

Chicago beer fans take note: No more cross-two-borders runs to pick up six-packs of beer from Michigan's craft-beer darling, Short's Brewing.

The Bellaire, Mich.-based brewer announced today on its website that it would sell its beer outside of its home state for the first time in its 12-year history, bowing to increasing pressure in-state by growing competition.

Short's, which has built a sizable cult-like following with its Soft Parade fruit rye beer, Huma Lupa Licious IPA and Space Rock pale ale, will start as soon as late February shipping kegs and bottles of its beer and cider to the greater Chicago area and Pennsylvania.

It marks a bit of an about-face for the Northern Michigan brewery–the state's third-largest behind widely distributed Bell's and Founders–which has long pegged its brand on the premise “Michigan Only, Michigan Forever.” But brewery founder and chief executive Joe Short said in a note posted to its website that to continue to grow and remain independent, it must sell its beer in other states.

“I have an amazing product, capacity to brew more beer and a badass crew working hard in Northern Michigan to consider,” he said in the letter. “We want to continue to grow and do awesome stuff, but we don't want to sell out to investors or another brewery. In order to do what is right for our company and our community, we will begin to sell our beer outside the state of Michigan.”

Short's Chief Financial Officer Brian Beckwith said Chicago “is a market that we identified pretty quickly once we made this decision.”

Though the city already has a heavily saturated local craft beer market, Chiccago has a large number of Michigan ex-pats, Mitten State-vacationers and a thriving local craft beer scene that made it “a natural fit” for the first round of expansion, Beckwith said.

The brewery has not yet settled on a distributor, but said that decision could come within days. It plans to send Chicago both kegs and six-packs of 12 oz. bottles of its three most popular beers, as well as one or two of its ciders. Depending on sales, Short's may opt to ship a broader assortment across the lake starting later this year.

Short's brewed about 39,000 barrels of beer last year and 4,000 barrels of cider, posting growth of roughly 30 percent over 2014. But, Beckwith noted, volume grew by more than 50 percent a year prior and Short's has additional capacity of 10,000 to 12,000 barrels.

“Growth has been strong, but we do kind of see in Michigan the potential of it slowing,” Beckwith said.

Thus the decision to move into Chicago and Pennsylvania, and by the end of the year, likely additional markets, Beckwith said.